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I’m a 23-year old contractual worker for a major bank for more than one year now. And I wonder why this bank is dragging its feet to hire regular employees. We know that the basic reason why organizations don’t hire regular employees is cost-savings. They don’t want employees to earn their seniority rights until retirement and be paid merit increases and handsome benefits every year. When I asked my former college teacher about it, she briefly answered about the phrase “extended probationary.” Unfortunately, I can’t find its true meaning in the Internet. Can you help me find out? – Wannabe Regular.
After surgery, a man wakes up drowsily in the hospital. He yells to the nurse: “I can’t feel my legs!” The nurse replies, “Well, of course you can’t. You have had your arms amputated.” The point I’m making is that you’ve probably Googled the wrong term. I’d like to believe that the correct answer is the “extended realistic job preview.”
I say “extended” because ordinarily the “realistic job preview” is done during the selection process. As you can imagine, smart employers don’t rely singly on IQ tests and job interviews to decide on whom to hire as the best and the brightest regular employees.
Hiring managers also want to discover consistently loyal and hardworking individuals who must work in a real-life situation. Towards this end, the “extended realistic job preview” is an excellent step to clearly define the mutual expectations of both employers and employees.
It also avoids costly turnover by allowing the organization to specifically state what they want from employees. Words or instructions are not enough to tell would-be regular employees on how they will be pressured and asked to work long hours. Temps or contractual employees must experience it for a long period of time.
The “extended realistic job preview” is favorable to the employer as it allows him considerable time to assess the fitness of a regular employee. On the other hand, it allows temps who are not the best fit for the job to voluntarily withdraw from employer’s consideration, thereby avoiding the inevitable costly turnover in the long term.
Understandably, it is needed for proper job fit for both employers and employees.
Now, your follow-up question could be like this: “But for how long do you have to wait?”
Your guess is as good as mine. It depends on many factors. But I’d like to think that you can control everything by consistently showing what you can do, not by your average work performance but by making yourself unique in terms of flexibility, innovation, resourcefulness, dependability, and by being a quick study, among others.
Try it. Do it without fail for another year. After all, you’re too young to jump ship right away. In doing what is expected of you, you can handle just about anything that comes your way as long as you don’t lose energy and focus. Performance in this sense is the ability to stay engaged regardless of your employment status.
It’s all easy to become distracted or lulled into complacency with your contractual employment status. Before you know it, you are drifting. A simple lack of attention to your work can cause you to lose the power of purpose and engagement.
To stay focused on your career goals, you need both a short-term and long-term agenda. Visualize them or to put it more succinctly, write it down. Then go back to the list as soon as you start drifting. Sooner than you can imagine, your career “to do” list will move closer to completion.
When you wait for a reasonable time (which is one year in your case), and you believe that something will happen, and then it will happen. If not, then maybe it’s time for you to move on.
CHALLENGE? This article is for non-management employees who can’t raise an issue directly against his/her boss for fear of reprisal. If you’re part of management with a supporting or opposing view, send us your position by citing your own experience or any published material by a management expert. Send all feedback or queries to elbonomics@gmail.com or follow Rey Elbo on Facebook or Twitter for his random management thoughts.
InterAksyon.com means BUSINESS
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